LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Our investigation into secrecy and spin inside the DeSantis administration, which relied on dozens of interviews and thousands of pages of documents, found that the administration ordered county health departments not to talk about the coronavirus ahead of the November election; denied person-to-person infection in the state while it was occurring; withheld information on infection in schools, prisons and hospitals; and cherry-picked statistics and experts until it found those that would paint the rosiest possible picture of the pandemic in Florida. The investigation printed in both the Sun Sentinel and our sister paper the Orlando Sentinel and was produced by Sun Sentinel reporters Mario Ariza, David Fleshler and Cindy Krischer Goodman.

Cheers!

I seldom write letters to newspaper writers. I wish to congratulate you all on your coverage on the governor’s handling of the pandemic. I cannot agree with you more. I have shared with a number of friends. Hope he and his administration are held accountable!

Scot Cornwall, Tavares

Jeers!

I’m sure you all worked very hard on today’s story, but you are just pissing in the wind.

DeSantis isn’t going anywhere for three more years, and the people of Florida are satisfied without the iron-fisted restrictions of California and New York. Oh, by the way, how is that working out for those two states?

Finally, there is a strong suspicion that the body count posted every day is bogus.

Bob Smith, Selbyville, Delaware ( formerly Pembroke Pines)

Cheers!

I can’t thank you enough for your investigative report on the secrecy of the DeSantis administration about COVID-19. It is even worse than I imagined.

What continues to make me crazy is the denial of science. Facts are facts. We can disagree on what to do, but science should guide us. Searching for physicians who agree with your political leanings is ridiculous and has resulted in the swift spread of the infection and unnecessary death and suffering. Most infectious disease specialists think wearing masks will slow the spread of this highly contagious disease, but if or how to enforce mask wearing is up for policy debate.

Unfortunately, the assault on science has been ongoing for decades, eroding the public trust and knowledge base. Think back to the states with religious conservatives in control, and how they forced educators to put in writing in textbooks that evolution is merely a theory and that the biblical interpretation had to be taught too. Boca Raton had a principal who didn’t feel he could state that the Holocaust actually happened, and his school is located in an area with a high number of Holocaust survivors.

I think there are many other challenges to scientific knowledge, which would be a terrific area of investigation for you and your colleagues.

Janet Fiber, Delray Beach

Jeers!

Dr. Fauci states in February that the virus is no more dangerous than the flu. The surgeon general recommends against wearing masks, as does St. Fauci. The Centers for Disease Control now state that children can go back to in-person learning.

I don’t know where you are, but here in Parkland, most people are wearing masks — sans a mandate no less!

I guess people can make the right choices on their own. A real story would talk about how masks should be worn properly and how the lockdowns have resulted in what?

None of that is recounted in your hit job on the governor. It reinforces the idea that this newspaper prides itself in misinformation boldly declared on the front page!

Dr. Anthony Iacobucci, Parkland